


I don't know where we're going but I'd like to be by your side

by SpyKids69420



Category: T@gged (Web Series)
Genre: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Mental Health Issues, Multi, Rowan Fricks-centric, Slow Burn, aka the gay road trip au we deserve, did I mention slow burn?, friendship building
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-22
Updated: 2019-05-22
Packaged: 2020-03-09 20:25:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18924427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpyKids69420/pseuds/SpyKids69420
Summary: Rowan Fricks has grown to love the people she once could not stand. She never expected to ever have more than one friend, but somehow she's managed to be squished up in Ash's worn-out caravan surrounded by her closest friends.Nicki Sullivan is not her friend. Not yet.





	I don't know where we're going but I'd like to be by your side

**Author's Note:**

> Yo. Basically im in love with t@gged and all of the characters and just want them to happy, so why not write a road-trip fic, yknow? There's barely any fics for this show at all, yet alone wlw fics, so i felt like i needed to step in lmao. And Nicki and Rowan are literally filled with so much potential i had to make them the centric ship of this. Idk if anyone will read this tbh but i hope y'all enjoy!!

Rowan Fricks doesn’t have many friends.

 

That’s kind of a given, to be honest. Hailey had been her best friend all her life. Her only friend. She knew the blonde girl was more popular than herself, but that never bothered her too much. It became a problem for Rowan, however, when Hailey decided to choose between Rowan and the rest of her school halfway through freshman year.

Rowan didn’t have any friends for a while after that.

But that’s in the past. Junior year started with many heartfelt apologies from Hailey, wanting to rekindle the friendship they once had. Rowan also realized that she may not have been the easiest person to be close with either, knowing she could be pretty judgmental sometimes. It took some time, but they made up and their friendship became stronger than ever.

 

Something else that surprised Rowan was that she managed to have multiple friends. Hailey introduced her to a friend of hers, Ash. Who introduced Rowan to his girlfriend. And Rowan loves Elisia, she never thought she’d be able to get close to anyone other than Hailey for the longest time. But now, she was able to say she had several friends. Several people she was close to.

Hailey didn’t stop hanging out with her popular group once she and Rowan made up. If this was a couple months beforehand, it would’ve bothered her. Not because they were popular per-say, it was mainly because, they’re all fucking bullies.

More specifically, they’re bullies that for whatever reason, decided making Rowans life a living hell for two years straight sounded like a fun pastime.

Freshman and Sophomore year were not good years for Rowan.

She doesn’t like confrontation, never has. So, she ignored her bullies. Ignored Brandon’s attempts to make her uncomfortable when he would declare whatever crude acts he would do to her in public. Ignore Trevor’s almost-violent attempts to get a reaction out of her. Ignore Sean making fun of her for the simplest things. Ignore Hailey’s laughter that she knew was forced, but it still hurting. She just ignored, ignored, ignored.

Nicki Sullivan doesn’t like being ignored; Rowan learns.

This is shown to Rowan many times. Nicki would push, Rowan would pretend to be bothered, Nicki would push harder. 

And it was just really fucking annoying.

But, once again, that was all in the past. During the summer between Sophomore and Junior year, Rowan’s mother and Trevor’s father elope and move in together. It was really awful for a while.

She and Trevor wouldn’t interact. It was unbearably awkward. When one of them walked into a room, the other walked out. It was an unspoken rule.

That changed.

At some point, they were able to sit in a room together civilly. Then, they could watch TV together. Then, Trevor would show her his film collection and forcefully make her sign up for a Letterboxd account. It was almost as if they were becoming friendly. 

 

Almost.

One night, late June, Rowan snaps.

 

It started when she was helping the boy tune his guitar in his room. Suddenly, she’s reminded of that incident early sophomore year when she brought in her own guitar for a music assignment she was performing that day. She remembers walking to class, only to be cornered. She remembers Trevor grabbing the guitar off of her, look to his friends, and smash it to the ground.

 

With her head filled with all the memories of the horrible things he had done to her mere months beforehand, she starts screaming. She’s being loud, she knows this, but she can’t stop. She’s shouting at Trevor about how horrible a person he has been, about how hard it was to go to school knowing it would be filled with pain caused by him, about how defeated she would feel going home. And then she’s crying. And then Trevor’s crying. And then he doesn’t defend himself. He just takes it all, let’s her get everything out. Once her voice hurts from the yelling and the crying mixed together, he speaks up.

And he apologizes.

It’s not perfect, its mainly him talking about his own problems, and how taking it out on others helps him cope. But Rowan understands. She doesn’t forgive him straight away, but she sees it in his eyes.

 

He’s hurting.

 

She isn’t sure what its about, but automatically she sees the self-hatred he has for himself. And she doesn’t forgive him yet, but she wants to help him.

That night was rather cathartic for the both of them.

As her and Trevor’s relationship grows, she starts hanging about around Brandon a lot more. At first, she can’t stand him. He’s still a prick to her. But, what once started as Brandon fully bullying her, weirdly becomes some form of two-way teasing and bickering they have going on. She learns more about him and his family, about his father, and what ‘parenting methods’ he uses. 

(She wants to kill Brandon’s father.)

It surprised Rowan. How now she could be chilling on a sofa with two boys who she once hated and feel completely on ease. Happy, even. Her, Trevor, and Brandon become a little trio at some point, spending many nights watching whatever film Trevor found to be a must-watch, ridiculing the other two for not already have seen it. Sean was there sometimes. Rowan wasn’t really close with him, but his presence never outright bothered her.

 

“Trevor’s in love with him, I think.” She hears one night during an A24 movie marathon Trevor insisted the four of them just must have. 

She was watching Trevor and Brandon when she heard it. The pair were sleeping on the loveseat, huddled together. Trevor had his face buried in the brunette’s neck, softly snoring. Brandon had his arm around Trevor’s middle. Rowan found the image adorable. She turned to Sean to see that he was also watching them, a small smile on his face. Rowan looks at the other boys again, then looks at Sean.

“Yeah, I could see that.”

 

 

She goes into Junior year being friends with the boys. Then Hailey apologizes. And at the beginning of Junior year, Rowan had more friends than she ever imagined she could. Definitely not expecting to be so close to any of them.

Her and Nicki are not friends.

Rowan had managed to become close with people Nicki was also close to, but somehow was able to completely avoid the other girl during the process. She would sit with them at lunch and Nicki would be there, and they never once spoke to each other. 

 

It was fine, kind of. Awkward whenever they’d somehow managed to be alone at times, but it was mere seconds before one of the girls made up an excuse and leave. And it was fine.

Sometimes she would catch Nicki staring at her while their friends talk to each other. Her green eyes piercing into her own. Rowan isn’t able to decipher what expression she had, or why she was looking so intensely at her. It made her uncomfortable.

Rowan gathered that Nicki finding out the girl she and her friends once tormented suddenly becoming a part of their group gave her some whiplash. She probably wasn’t expecting it, being caught completely off-guard by how familiar her friends and her victim were. 

If Nicki tried to talk and be nice to her, Rowan would be okay with that. But Nicki never put in the effort, so neither did Rowan. She was also okay with that.

 

Sometimes she wished they were friends, though. Just so that the air was clear with everyone she once had issues with. But it wasn’t that big a deal.

 

There’s a road trip her friends are planning. For ten days during the October school holidays, Rowan and the rest of her friends are going to pack into Ash’s Caravan and head North, going nowhere in particular. Just some time for them all to hang out and get away. It’s Rowan, Hailey, Ash, Brandon, Trevor, Sean, Elisia and Nicki. At some point they’re also going to pick up Nicki’s cousin and her girlfriend and hang with them for a while. The plan was messy and unorganized, but it was good because Rowan would be spending it with her closest friends.

 

Plus Nicki, of course.

**Author's Note:**

> Feel like i should mention that the narrative structure is gonna change after this chapter, this is more of a prologue to how Rowan became friends with them all.   
> Tumblr is Trevoraskill if u wanna ask me anything. If it turns out people are reading this, please leave a comment to let me know i should continue this lmao thank u :)))


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